Too Many Earth Lanterns...

[Vampire Savior]

Question-WHO made them order all those books? Oh that is right NO ONE-they seem to forget they have freedom of CHOICE.
So that is an excuse that needs to go away.

If retailers don't order the books, who is going to order the books? Either the retailers don't sell the books, or DC doesn't sell the books to the retailers. Either way, the books don't sell.

The rebirth books sold and at times one of the other did better be it floppies or trades.

The numbers are up at Comichron for anyone to see. They started off with strong sales numbers, but in my mind, that doesn't mean anything. I've see books go from selling 100,000 one month, to 30,000 the next. In North America, at least, those GL books were selling in the mid and low 20,000s. Where a book levels off is what really matters in my mind, because that gives more of an idea of how many people are actually following the title.

The main complaint for Hal & TGCL was folks did not want to read about Hal-if it was going to be a Hal is the greatest of all type story or reference. It came down to readers wanting to either read about Hal ONLY or the other ONLY. Not both together.

Yeah, that was a complaint, and a good example of Green Lanterns wrestling over panel time. That kind of thing happens when you have so many. I was disappointed that the aliens played negligible roles aside from Tomar-Tu and Soranik, and they were only relevant during particular arcs.

Lost Army did do well but got derailed and became Edge of Oblivion. Because that was suppose to be a 12 part series.

Lost Army did not do that well. Again, the numbers are out there. They shouldn't be too hard to find. The book came out Summer 2015, if I recall correctly. That's one of the reasons it got derailed. Bunn came out and said that sales were part of the issue. I also think Bunn had some other problem with DC, and Lost Army may have been the cause of it. He went from writing about 6 or7 titles for DC during DCYou to 0, and I don't think he's handled a regular ongoing for DC since then.

I asked him what was going on with Lost Army and what his original plan for the ending to the series was during an AMA geared toward comic creators, and he completely ignored me. My impression at the time was that it was on purpose, because my question was one of the first he got, if not the first. I have a feeling he didn't want to talk about it. But sales on that book weren't that great, either. They ended up being around what Green Lanterns and Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps were.

As for Robert Venditti-I heard those complaints. However they fall on DEAF ears when you write a book that store only pay attention to name recognition.
If he is that bad why is that book being ORDERED?

For the most part, the retailers are trying to stay in business. I'm sure they have their preferences, but when it comes down to it, they're going to order whatever they think they can sell. If "Green Lantern" sells, that's what they're going to want to buy, not "Green Lantern: New Guardians" or something like that. Name recognition counts for a lot, and comics buyers are generally creatures of habit. If they've been buying "Green Lantern" for 90 years, they're going to want to keep on buying it.

It's not a shot at Hal but a shot at management. Spiderverse showed you how it can work.

You've mentioned this more than once. Please be specific about what you're proposing. Are you proposing that the Green Lanterns be put in different universes and then team up once in a while? Because that's how Spider-Verse works.

[Dr. Ellingham]

We already know that.

So the reply should be fine let it be about Hal and don't cry about sales. Enough whatever consequences that may bring.

If Hal is the core take everybody's else ring away. Because no one is going to support the others knowing there is a glass ceiling. If it is all about one guy WIPE OUT everybody else and stop wasting folks time.

I think you took away the wrong thing from what I was saying; they're not wasting anyone's time - we all invest time/energy at our own risk. There is no glass ceiling, either; clearly Hal is the character with the most history at DC- 60 years now starring in GL stories. DC obviously sees him as the default, the feature character. That doesn't mean he's immune to being replaced, or that they can't use the other characters too.

Or create new ones. If DC were in need of shaking things up (again), there are two likely scenarios: Cut out all the pre-Jessica GLs and just use her, or - junk all of them and start fresh with a reboot. Until one of those things happens, it's a big sandbox, and Hal will likely remain a primary ingredient. And that's been demonstrated to work really well, with the right creators.

Which was my point - creating evergreen books. People liked Johns' era, so it sold well. As I understand it, Venditti's run started strong, but faded over time. Perhaps DC left him on the book too long? The goal should be a quality series that people would want to return to after it was over.